ENES232 | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/10/2025	Prof Rubiano often did examples in class that were harder/more intense than the exam which helps you feel super comfortable with the topics when taking the exam. A great professor!
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/09/2025	Dr. Rubiano really cares about his students and provides us with material and practice to succeed. I felt that having the large majority of the content part of the course be done individually and then the connective pieces done in class were particularly helpful. Dr Rubiano’s videos were great! I got the most out of them when I took notes but I didn’t always have time to do that, but even just watching them after class did wonders to prepare me for exams. It really got out of the way the introduction of the simpler key concepts and presented them in a format where I could revisit them when doing homework. I like how he talks to the class about stuff other than what a textbook includes. There’s many a lesson to learn from his advice on being an engineering student and what to do for other classes.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/05/2025	Bluntly put Dr. Rubiano might be too smart for a lot of students. If you miss something he says, you gotta ask or come to his office hours. Once you get that hang of the class you learn to love it. His practice problems are sometimes too intricate, but they are what prepares you for the more difficult exam problems. He makes a habit of reminding us to care about learning, and not worrying about grades. At times is hard to do that, but when you realize what you're in college for, it's easier to do. His lectures are clear and covers a lot in 50 minutes. His life lessons are priceless. I would take any class he offers. He is organized and responds to messages in less than an hour (don't send him emails, send him a class message through Elms). I think the only downside of the higher difficulty of his class is that you expect the exams to be impossible hard, and that can be anxiety inducing at times. But on the other hand, once you take the first exam you realize how easy they are because of how much you've learned. Maybe Rubiano is not for everyone, but surely for anyone who truly cares about learning. You'll learn a lot.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/03/2025	I only got an A because of professor Rubiano's office hours. I had Anderson for Thermo, but he only teaches you how to use equations. Rubiano finally made it click all for me. Any question I had for Anderson that he made up something for, Rubiano had a clear and concise answer for. I had Rubiano for ENES221, so I made an effort to go to his office hours. Just like in 221, Rubiano will explain anything you ask him in a way that just clicks. I wish I could've taken Thermo with him. At least I'm glad you can just look up his summary lectures on youtube to study for exams. They're a lifesaver when crunching for the final.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a C- Anonymous 06/03/2025	As a student who got a C- in this class, I can tell you Rubiano does not like slackers. And seeing his reviews here, slackers apparently don't like him either. That being said, Rubiano's class is as organized as they come. His thought process for problem solving is something I'll take with me forever, and I only wish I had noticed this sooner. Forget about his youtube, his classes are amazing. He does not dilly dally with the math but rather with the problem setup and how to approach any problem. He goes over many complex examples in each class. I think there's a learning curve to his teaching style, and if you're not there to see him teach and go through that curve yourself, you're just going to be frustrated. I know I was, but that was all my fault, not his. If you're here to get some sound advice, here it is: do NOT listen to what all these people that very obviously weren't expecting an A are complaining about. Lectures are a 10 out of 10, class examples will prepare you for the hardest problems, and he is on another level of smart. If you don't like rubiano as a professor, you probably didn't get to really know him.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 06/03/2025	Rubiano is really strict and he can be, cause he knows what he's talking about. The guy is really smart and conveys that knowledge with ease - pun intended. If you make it to class and participate, he'll be really helpful with absolutely anything you need. If you have never shown your face and intend to pass the class by watching what has always been intended to be a review, not an actual lecture, he's gonna be really harsh with you. You miss a quiz, you get a zero. You miss a deadline, you don't get a second chance. You ask for points back, he'll demonstrate how wrong you are and prove that you actually deserved fewer points. IMO he cares very much about the students that put it the work, and will give hell to those that want to get an A for doing very little or expect a curve. Also, you don't need the textbook at all. He covers a lot more than the textbook does in class.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/02/2025	He just doesn't teach. I had him for ENES220 last semester and, while we were still expected to watch his videos sometimes, he still tried to teach course material in class. This semester, he switched over entirely to his stupid lecture videos. I gave them a genuine try, but they are too general and spend way too much time on practice problems. Attending class felt like a complete waste of time because he would spend the entire class half-completing practice problems and harping on the most pointless details (spending 15 minutes teaching us how to look up values in tables during three different classes). While the 'flipped classroom' style teaching just isn't for me in general, I felt like he did a particularly bad job executing it. He would also forgot to post things on gradescope (homework assignments, exam grades). He had to delay the homework due date multiple different times because he did not remember to open up the assignment until hours before it was due. He says he only curves people who 'deserve it,' but my final percentage grade is 3% higher than the one calculated from my scores. Unless he felt like someone who was visibly never paying attention in class despite sitting in the front row (me) deserved to go from an A to an A+ (which is not an important grade distinction), I'm pretty sure he curves everyone's final grades. There was also a ~3% curve for ENES220 when he taught it, too, so I think that might apply to all of his classes.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a B Anonymous 06/02/2025	Half his morning classroom was always empty. I think the hate comes from thinking you can sporadically come to class because you can watch his lectures later. You miss out and are going to be lost when you do come to class if you rely on supplementary resources and call that his class. Rubiano is by far the best professor I've had. He is extremely organized and his lecture videos are very clear. He assigns an enormous amount of work in terms of keeping up with recorded lectures and practice problems, but if you do keep up, and A is very easy to get. I personally skipped class a lot at first because I knew his lectures were online, but after I dedicated more time a lot more time to this class, everything was clear as water. He does not curve but I did get a small bump in my grade as I performed substantially better with every exam there was, which he says he does. 5/5
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/28/2025	Rubiano is not a terrible professor. His class is structured where you have to watch a video before class to learn and take notes, then in class he goes over example problems. The videos are 8-12 minutes and can all be seen on his youtube channel less boring lectures. If you want to learn anything from them you will have to take 30-45 minutes of taking notes per video because they are extremely fast paced and require lots of stopping and writing down. Most of what he says in class was "if you watched the videos this concept should be obvious" or "if you are unsure about this concept make sure to rewatch the video". The examples he goes over in class are not the most helpful with him often setting up a problem very quickly with variables then saying that it should make sense and moving on. If you missed a video or don't feel you understand don't go to that class it will be hard to get anything from it, Most of the class stopped going to lecture after the first week and only came for Friday studios. He started to say he was going to give quizzes during class time(which the syllabus specifically says wouldn't happen) to try to get people to attend class. The quizzes did end up getting dropped and didn't hurt your grade at the end of the semester. The exams are pretty fair and if you show improvement he gives a healthy curve even though he says all semester he won't curve. Another important thing to note is that he assigns random group for the project which is a little annoying but not the worst. Overall he is a nice guy and if you are willing to learn mostly from videos and on your own he's a fine professor to take.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Anonymous 05/28/2025	DO NOT TAKE RUBIANO unless you are confident in your ability to teach yourself the material for an entire course. Yes its does help to go to lecture and discussion and to watch his youtube videos (which are the only source of material you get) but with that being said, I did all of this and still almost didn't pass the class. Reasons I would avoid Rubiano at ALL COSTS: 1) He doesn't teach. He assigns you youtube videos from his channel to watch before every lecture which could be helpful except for the fact that the videos cover material as if you've taken the course before or have a background in thermo or the concepts covered in the class which is not the case for most people who take this class. This fact makes the videos a little more useful when studying for the final but I was not to go back and rewatch every video while trying to study for 4 other finals. The videos are not helpful and caused me to be so lost from the start and had to try to play catchup the rest of the semester. He also just has wrong equations in his videos 2) He "teaches" to the test and the homework. He is not interested in actually having you know the material from start to finish, he just wants you to have the exact amount info he feels you need to be able to complete the HW. He also told our class that a specific topic wouldn't be covered on an exam and then there was an entire question on that topic so you can't trust what he says 3) HE DOESNT CURVE. He claims that his sections had the highest averages on the exams but I dont see how that is possible since he doesn't teach and often cant finish examples in class or gets them wrong. He doesn't curve the class but i will say he does curve at the end on an individual basis which I really appreciated. 4) (less of a reason but thought I'd share) He just wants to be liked. I couldn't tell you the amount of time he spent in lecture complaining to us that he graded his exam question the day after the exam and is really upset that this one other guy hasn't graded his yet and he would grade the whole exam if he could blah blah blah. 5) He doesn't respond to emails or canvas messages unless he is literally in the classroom which can be very frustrating. TLDR: He doesn't teach, you have to watch his videos which are too fast and not good for learning thermo for the first time, he doesn't curve, and honestly I don't know if Rubiano would have been able to pass our final
Christopher Cadou ENES232 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/27/2025	There are definitely better professors you can have but Cadou is pretty decent - wouldn't change my whole schedule for a different professor. Grade wise there was about a 3% curve in my class given that our averages for the midterms and final were 65 55 85 80 ish. The lectures are pretty good as he basically goes through the already posted notes which are posted for the entire course the first day. He was forgiving when I forgot to submit my studio assignment the third week and gave me full credit, he also helped a lot during studios. He was also lenient on the project, most groups got A's. He also said he bumps your grade up if your on the edge if your test scores increase through the semester. I think that he could do more examples during class but if you watch Rubianos videos you will be great which I didn't do until the end. Just look up "Less Boring Lectures" on youtube and the entire course is there. Make sure you redo all the homeworks on your own and do the practice tests on your own, also don't miss out on the (kind of hidden) link to conceptual practice quizzes in the announcements for the tests which many people missed but helped a lot. I heard of many friends taking the course over the winter which I probably would have done because there is no project and the tests were much easier, the average grades were also much higher, although it is a lot more compressed and stressful resulting in not as much retention of the content and for a class as important as thermo it really depends on how hard your semester is.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/27/2025	He makes thermo pretty easy to get an A or A- in. If you go to every lecture, do the homeworks, and do the studios, you should be guaranteed a good grade depending on how you do in exams. He has a really helpful YouTube channel that he always plugs during class, you usually have to watch the assigned video before lecture and he talks about that video during lecture, they are only like 5-10 minutes long. His lectures are a little bit boring, however, and he talks in the really monotone voice that can be hard to listen to. Interestingly, his exam averages are higher than the exam averages in other sections, im guessing he just provides us better resources than the other 232 instructors. He adds a few extra points to the end of your course grade if he feels like you are trying (doing all your assignments and showing improvements on exams), he pushed my 88 to a 92. Even if you do terrible on one exam, he will let it slide if you show improvement.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/26/2025	This experience makes me want to take higher level classes with him. Young offers many extra credit opportunities. This semester, the opportunities amounted to about a whole 4% grade increase if you did everything. That being said, the lecture quality was mixed for me. At times, I preferred to self-study rather than attend lecture. He also can be disorganized, posting lecture notes and videos late into the week, as well as sometimes not opening homeworks until hours before they are due (this is not a big deal as the class portal has the homework file posted a whole week in advance usually, but you should be aware of it). However, he makes up for it by being excellent at answering questions and clarifying topics when you do ask. Very personable, very kind, very nice. Made the class very interesting, especially at the end where there was an optional week where we went over thermodynamics in sci-fi cinema and real-life application. Tl;dr : Some things might not click immediately in thermo, and his lecture quality is mixed when it comes to making it easier than the book. Make sure to ask questions. Use portal in elms to access homeworks. There are plenty of extra credit opportunities. Office hours are very important.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/24/2025	Professor Young’s class was disorganized, and his teaching style was not for me. Most of our grades weren’t posted until the final weeks of school, and our homework would often be posted a few hours before it was due. His teaching style isn’t problematic by itself; however, he mostly teaches using lecture slides and definitions, which can be hard to engage with and leaves a lot of textbook-browsing to the student. He also tries to emphasize how hard the course is and how much we need to study, which I personally felt made the material seem more intimidating than it actually is. He is a chill guy, and the discussion sections were good - it also helps that the grading is pretty nice. However, taking another professor will likely make this class easier.
Paul Anderson ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/24/2025	Professor Anderson is the best! Although I wasn’t technically a part of his section, I started coming to his lectures after not doing super well on the first exam. Not only was he super nice and welcoming, he made it very easy to understand a topic I was initially confused by. I went from a C on my first exam straight up to an A+ on the next one! He’s a great guy and super willing to help you learn and succeed. Definitely take Anderson for Thermo if you have the opportunity to!
Christopher Cadou ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/23/2025	He's a good guy but his lectures are so boring and he does not teach the content well. Our class averages are well below other professors like Rubiano. Try to take Rubiano or Hamel if you can. He would not get to all the material and tell us to teach ourselves from the textbook, or lecture past the regular class hours. He would also blame us, the students, for having a low class average, when he is the guy teaching us.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/20/2025	Top Dawg on that youtube grind. He spends a lot of time making those youtube videos, they are very very good for teaching thermo.
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/19/2025	There are good and bad things regarding the way Sedwick teaches. On the plus, you don't have friday studios, on a minus, your going to be writing lecture notes for like three hours a week. During class he expects you to ask questions but nobody really knowns what they are doing. Class average fell below passing for the first two exams so we got a significant curve ontop of exam rewrites which was an extra 8% on the exams. Overall not hard to pass but allows people to get through without understanding any of the material or putting in significant effort. Was a nice guy and wants you to fully understand concepts but the execution is not great.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/19/2025	He doesn't deserve the hate. He's a great guy who cares about his students. I brought up errors in my exam grading, and he immediately fixed them. His YouTube lectures are good, but I did wish he lectured a little more. He gave great examples, and our class always had the highest averages for exams. He gave quizzes, but they ended up not counting towards finals. Do a great review before exams. I recommend him greatly, made me interested in the subject.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Anonymous 05/19/2025	Everyone else is hating, I've had him two semesters in a row and have gone to class every day. He tells you to watch a 10/15-minute video before each class, in class briefly summarizes it, and does 1-2 complex problems applying it. He explains things conceptually very well (very helpful in office hours), and does good reviews before exams. Watching the videos can be boring, but his averages for exams are significantly higher than other sections. There is no reason to avoid taking him.
Christopher Cadou ENES232 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/16/2025	His lectures are genuine, but not too helpful. All his notes are posted on canvas and he just copies off that and reads it out in class. I mainly learned from the homeworks during TA office hours, and studios. Cadou doesn't attend his own office hours half the time but my TAs were good so wasn't a big deal. He doesn't really curve very much, mostly a couple of points here and there, and based mostly on if he "thinks you've improved throughout the year." He's not too bad compared to the alternatives tho
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/11/2025	You either love taking notes outside of class and not having Friday studio, or you struggle with self pacing practice problems and only learn from the homework. I copied the slides from the videos verbatim and did not listen to the videos, which was free points, but I didn't really learn anything from them. The homework is standard across the sections and they taught me what I needed for some of the test questions. The test questions are similar to the studio problems (which you will never see in class unless you ask for them explicitly). I did the homework during class and did not pay attention to his ramblings, which was the only thing that kept me awake during class. He basically just repeats the stuff you write down from the videos. Super sweet guy, but maybe try to take Dr. Anderson or Dr. Hamel for thermo if you want to enjoy the class.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/10/2025	He just doesn't really teach. As others have said, he assigns videos before every lecture to watch, but these aren't proper lectures - they're Organic Chem Tutor-style reviews of the material that are 10 minutes long. (Even if they were full lectures, I hate the flipped learning model). Rubiano says we should be taking ~30 mins to watch them and write notes, but that's absurdly frustrating and hard to learn from. Then, in lectures, he'll do a problem or two, but I rarely felt like it elevated my understanding. Most of my actual 'learning' happened during Friday studios and homeworks when I actually had to solve problems myself. Also says he won't curve our class, except if he thinks you individually deserve a higher grade. But I always go to Anderson for office hours (he's great) so how would he know how much effort I've put in? He's an okay guy I guess, makes the classroom feel a bit stifled but he's not, like, actively harmful to the learning environment. Just a very frustrating professor to learn from.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/10/2025	Hes a good professor when he actually decides to teach but that's about half the time, he expects that everyone has watched the youtube videos that he made several years ago, admitadly they are good but not good enough that I want to be introduced to topics, also never believe a promise this guy makes I don't think a single one has been true the entire semester
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Anonymous 05/08/2025	Teaching from YouTube videos the whole year should not be allowed at UMD. I would understand if it was supplemental like some other teachers do, but this is ridiculous.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/07/2025	Wow we have hit a new low. I can't say I've had a professor like him. His other thermo reviews are extremely accurate, in that he definitely does not teach well, if at all. His class time is him spending the time plugging his youtube channel. Mid-semester, he switched from calling it youtube videos to "online lectures". The channel's name "Less Boring Lectures" is definitely false info. He also started giving out more quizzes because he was depressed no one showed up to his class. I learned from reverse teaching myself from the homeworks. I can't wait to be done with this class. I almost feel sorry.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/06/2025	Professor Rubiano does not teach. Instead of giving real lectures, he assigns YouTube videos and reads through confusing or incorrect examples in class, rarely finishing them or explaining clearly. His lectures are disorganized, often inaccurate, and not aligned with assignments. Students are left to rely on textbooks, online videos, and their own efforts to learn the material. Despite seeming nice, he’s petty and disingenuous. His approach makes learning harder, not easier. He shouldn’t be teaching at UMD if all he does is shove his online materials down the throat.
Andres Rubiano Acosta ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/05/2025	Horrible Professor. He does not teach during lectures, and instead has assigned YouTube videos to watch to learn content. His lectures instead consist of working partially through example problems which he does not fully answer or explain. He also decides to randomly have in-class quizzes, which are against the course-wide syllabus. Watching the video lectures for content is not enough to do well in the class, as reading the textbook is a necessity for this professor. Do not take this professor if you can.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/21/2025	Best teacher for this course. She has very thorough notes and everything that is practiced in class is similar to the exams. HWs were occasionally difficult, but office hours were super helpful. It's tempting to skip the class and look over the uploaded lecture notes, but from personal experience please don't because I was only a couple of points away from an A.
Paul Anderson ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/23/2025	Super friendly, dedicated teacher who really cares about the material and his students. He seemed genuinely excited when something clicked for me during office hours.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 02/21/2025	Easily the best thermo teacher I could ask for. Her notes are incredibly thorough and if you have any questions, she always has the best example scenarios to give explanations. Her office hours are super helpful. She made thermo so easy
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/12/2025	I took 232 over the winter with her and Kevin, they are both super good profs but Hamel's lecture videos were super thorough and valuable because she works through examples for each concept and demonstrates how the concept fits into the practice problem. SHe is genuinely the best professor at UMD.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/10/2024	Greatest professor I've had since kindergarten. Brilliant homework too.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2024	ENES232 might be one of the best taught and structured courses at this university. Having Hamel makes it definitely the best taught and structured courses at this university.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/09/2024	Dr. J is not a very good lecturer, I often left class with many questions and had to relearn the material. However, he makes up for this by being very very helpful one-on-one and by keeping his lectures and studios engaging. Young is the type to answer your question with another question to test your understanding, and even though this can be annoying at first he is very good at helping you find an answer and understand difficult concepts. Young also posts lecture videos online with corresponding notes for every lecture and it's really helpful if you need to go back if you missed something. He curved the class a lot and is a really nice guy.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 10/14/2024	This is the best professor I had at UMD. There are no criticisms one could have. I wish all of my courses could be taught in the same manner with the same passion.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/01/2024	She is the BEST. If you you really wanna enjoy thermo and understand it easily just take her section without any hesitation.
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/24/2024	I loved how he posted lecture videos so we could reference information outside of class. He was always so nice and always had a smile on his face. He obviously knew the information so well and was very good at teaching it and trying to find the best ways for students to remember and understand the concepts. He also has six cats which is pretty cool, as well as the story behind them. Anyway, I would very much recommend Dr. Sedwick.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2024	Very polished notes, caring and helpful during office hours. Made the material feel very easy
Kevin Calabro ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2024	My favorite teacher Ive had by far. His lectures are informative yet direct, his teaching style is rigid but patient, his grading is meticulous yet accurate. You will come out of his classes thinking "yeah, I deserved the grade that I got", because he is extremely fair and expects you to know the course material because he has taught it to you so well. He could teach mechanics to a kindergartener and thermodynamics to a houseplant. I have taken three courses with him and he has done a fantastic job instructing every single one. The best part is he is such a decent dude. Super respectful to his students and always willing to give even the most objectively "that kid has not been paying attention" questions a sincere and thorough answer. Only professor I would wake up at 8am for throughout the entire semester. Take this man if you have the chance.
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/11/2024	After looking at his reviews, I was a little scared to take this professor for thermo but I was pleasantly surprised. Compared to many other Thermo professors, Sedwick arguably has some of--if not the best and most organized notes. Instead of lectures you watch very detailed lecture videos and come to class with any questions about that. This is where I would say the main downside of the class is. The lecture videos can be pretty tedious to get through, especially by the end of the semester. I sometimes would just look at the slides he posted instead of watching the videos just because that would shave off like 1.5+ hours of time. Still, he's great at explaining things, super approachable, and was absolutely a professor I'd take again.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/14/2024	I had a 9am and never skipped once, she is INCREDIBLE.
Joshua Cocker ENES232 Anonymous 03/14/2024	Amazing professor in every sense. Absolutely cannot go wrong with Josh.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Anonymous 02/29/2024	Amazing professor. Clearly passionate about teaching and ensuring that you understand the content easily. BTW, the actual exam is much harder than the practice ones.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/26/2024	Ditto the other comments.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A- acthakur 01/24/2024	Absolutely and easily the most helpful professor I have ever had. Do not skip out on her office hours they are easily the most helpful resource she offers. Depending on your TA luck, they also have great office hours. The lectures themselves are mediocrely helpful, but that's more the nature of the content than the professor. If you are struggling just talk to her and she will almost ensure that you are all caught up in your understanding. Again, do NOT skip out on her office hours, I would have an A+ if I had started going before the first exam.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/15/2023	If you have the opportunity to choose prof. Hamel as your instructor for any course, please do yourself a favor and choose her. I took her thermodynamics course in the fall of 2022, 1 year ago, and I am still close with her today. During the time I had her I could sense that she cared not only for success in her class, but in my career as a whole. At the time I was new to the university and was navigating through the different engineering resources in terms of internship searching. She introduced me to careers4engineers and how to navigate that, and she was always encouraging me to ask her questions not related to the course if I had any. Through this class I feel like I built not only thermodynamics knowledge but an important and meaningful connection. I have asked her for multiple recommendations and she happily did all of them on top of her day-to-day work and busy schedule. She is a genuine individual and as long as you show her that you are willing to put in the work to understand the materials, she will literally bend over backwards to help you succeed.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/07/2023	Goated. Absolutely amazing professor. Good notes, lectures, extremely helpful inside and outside of the classroom. If you do not have her as a professor at some point, you're missing out.
Paul Anderson ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/04/2023	Paul is a great professor and a great guy in general. You can really tell he cares about teaching and wants everybody to succeed. Lectures are well prepared, the homework assignments are fair, practice exams get posted, and you get 2 tries on every exam, so if you want a good grade in this class it is not that hard as long as you put in some effort.
Paul Anderson ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/06/2023	Dr Anderson kept us engaged and excited for the materials the whole semester. The grading scheme is pretty frustrating and it feels like every week we had an exam. But he grades the project, HW, and regrades leniently. The final was much easier than the midterms. Make sure you know your multiple choice conceptual questions because that makes up a lot of points.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/27/2023	Great guy, he tells jokes and is very generous and caring to the students.
Paul Anderson ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/25/2023	Dr. Anderson gives his lectures well and typically explains things clearly. At times, he had a little trouble wording a topic, but it was his first time teaching the class this semester but have to keep in mind this was his first time teaching the class. He's extremely friendly, and if you ever have a question after class or go to office hours, he's great at answering them and explaining it clearly in that type of setting.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/22/2023	Dr. Young is a very genuine professor; he wants you to succeed and tries to help you do so, but will jokingly call you out for dumb questions. His lectures are fine, but you can honestly get by with the course notes he provides on ELMS. They're very neat and available in both worksheet and video format, so basically the entire course is available to you from the start. Overall, funny guy, very organized, no complaints. Only real downside is he's one of those "let's try that again" people when the class doesn't do a passionate enough "good morning." Learned a lot, though, and I would take him again. As for class structure: One weekly homework assignment that usually takes 1-3 hours, and one weekly classwork for the studio sections (posted online). Lectures and studio sections are not mandatory, but occasionally there will be some unannounced extra credit opportunity you can only get by attending, so don't skip. 3 midterms + a final, but the midterms are taken two times each (so midterm 1 was actually 1A and 1B, with 1B being 1 week after 1A). There is no partial credit, but they grade them within 1-2 days and you do regrade requests on Gradescope - 90% of points back for numerical errors (ex. calculator mistype), 20% back for conceptual errors (you didn't know what you were doing), and an additional 10% back for sanity checks ("my answer clearly doesn't make sense and this is why"). The higher grade of each set of midterms is kept. The system sounds harsh but can be quite forgiving, as the questions are typically pretty formulaic. The final DID grade with partial credit (and it was almost exactly like the practice final), and there was an unspecified (not shown in ELMS) curve for the course grade, and he doesn't seem to do minus grades (A- = A). Bumped my 88 to a flat A. There's also a final project that looks like a lot but was graded quite leniently.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2023	Chill
Paul Anderson ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/12/2023	Professor Anderson taught thermodynamics in a way I could understand, and he was able to answer any questions I had. He also had a lot of energy in each class, which I thought was a nice bonus. I will note that the answers given by the instructors on the course piazza were often vague, but answers given after class or during office hours were pretty direct.
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Anonymous 04/20/2023	Sedwick, from what I can understand from friends in other sections, runs the class a bit differently. Other professors have the class set up so that you have two lectures, and a discussion with graded group work. Sedwick has it set up so that you only have one lecture and one discussion with no graded discussion worksheet. Instead, he has it so that you watch and write notes for two ~50 minute videos a week due before lecture. This comes with both upsides and downsides which I'll get to later. As far as a lecturer, professor Sedwick has a high expectation for student engagement in the course and material, he is a strong believer in deriving formulas and understanding where they came from opposed to memorizing just the formulas. As such do not expect a formula sheet in any of the exams. His lectures mostly review the content from the lecture videos, and provide an opportunity for questions. He answers questions very thoroughly, what I would think were quick questions have gotten lengthy explanations. This means you'll definitely not come away with any misunderstandings if you pay attention, but also slows down the pace of class a bit. As for the upsides and downsides I mentioned earlier, the lecture videos mean 12% of your grade is free points for writing notes, and you don't have to go to class one day a week. The downside is they can be very tedious and take about 40-80% longer than the videos themselves since he expects you to write all the writing on the slides verbatim for full credit, and there is a lot to copy down (granted I do tend to write slow). I think overall I have put in more time in Sedwick's class than I would have put in other sections, but came away with a better understanding of thermo as a result. Overall i'd recommend him if you are OK with a more no-nonsense type professor and want a good understanding of thermo and are willing to put in the requisite time.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 04/17/2023	Catherine is the best engineering professor I have had so far. She truly cares about her students learning and even takes the time to learn all of our names. Her lecture style is good and not just reading off slides. She does the examples with us, and takes the time to fully explain and answer questions. The class isn't bad, you get to take all of the midterms twice, but there is no partial credit which kind of stinks. They are pretty lenient when grading homework and studios, however they grade the final project harshly so make sure you put effort into that, especially the formatting.
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 03/22/2023	I had a terrible experience with this professor. Snarky doesn't begin to describe how arrogant he is. He was very rude and unprofessional towards me, including with direct insults. Furthermore, he had a policy where he would force us to take notes on his lecture videos and then force us to submit pictures of those notes twice a week, while still making us come to class by taking attendance. In class, he said nothing of value, only inefficiently explained example problems that he already thoroughly covered in the video lectures. He also refused to answer my questions in class about the material, instead replying, "look at your notes again," several times. If I had the answer in my notes I wouldn't have asked! If you want a professor who wastes your time, is rude and mean-spirited, and is generally unhelpful and wants nothing more than to satisfy his own enormous ego, this is the professor for you.
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/07/2023	I have a good grade in this course in spite, not because, of his teaching, and I am shocked that he has any positive reviews, since my experience with Raymond was terrible. He is an incompetent lecturer and grader, rude, and refuses to answer basic questions, telling students to just look at their notes again. Of course, if they had the answer in their notes, the wouldn't ask! Additionally, he has this extremely annoying policy of forcing students to take notes on his mind-numbingly boring video lectures, and then submit pictures of those notes, and still forces us to come to class where he not only takes attendance, but also gives useless, slow paced lectures which cover the exact same material as the video lectures. All of these are just some examples of his infuriating behavior. I would give this "professor" 0/5 stars if I could and 5/5 for wasting my time. Avoid him at all costs if you want a professor that actually teaches anything and doesn't assign endless busywork. Thank you Sedwick for making thermodynamics my least favorite class of my college career.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2022	Don't even need to explain. You need this professor period. But do watch out for the final project it's werid
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2022	Goated.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/20/2022	Professor Hamel is the best professor I've had because she treats her students like people, not numbers. She goes beyond her call of duty in terms of helping students and holding office hours. She not only knows her material, but she also knows how to teach it well. She understands her students and concerns the class may have.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 08/19/2022	Professor Hamel is probably one of the only professors I’ve had who actually puts in visible effort into her students. I had her over the Summer and despite the short time she had to give us material, she put in her best effort to make sure everyone understood the topics. She also gave us multiple opportunities to receive extra credit to boost our grades. Hands down one of the best professors I’ve had so far.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2022	Catherine is the best engineering professor I have ever had, without a doubt. Her friendliness and genuine care for her students make it a pleasure to interact with her. She goes above and beyond to be helpful in office hours and on the course Piazza. Thermo is a difficult subject, but all assignments and exams are fair. It may take a significant amount of effort to do well because of the nature of the material, but it is definitely possible, especially because Catherine is such a good professor. She explains things clearly, takes questions, and will slow down or repeat things if asked. The combination of how good she is at explaining difficult material and how much she genuinely cares about your success make this class thoroughly enjoyable.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 04/26/2022	Decent guy, but bad lecturer and harsh grader. Lectures go over basic material with too many equations that you're expected to memorize. Exams have no partial credit and expect to lose sets of 10 points for sign errors that are inconsistent or other simple mistakes.
Jarred Young ENES232 Anonymous 03/12/2022	Seriously don't understand the praise for this guy. I enjoy his humor and that's about it. If you want to watch someone slowly write definitions on the board for 45 minutes, not 50 because he's usually late, this is your guy. If you want to cover one extremely easy in class example per week that is nothing like the assignments or exams, he's your guy. If you enjoy the childish game of the lecturer demanding repeat enthusiastic "good mornings" before starting lecture, also your guy. If you want to lose 20 points on a 30 point question because of one error, he's definitely your guy. The grading for these exams is so absurd. "conceptual fluency" is a joke. Incredible that you can get all the right numbers yet get 0 points on a 30 point question because you did or didn't use a negative sign, extremely ironic when other universities teach this class with opposite definitions of heat and work in/out. If the concepts are so important, why is so much time spent on definition, not concepts or examples? The TA is extremely arrogant and generally not helpful at all. Literally laughs at students questions, then goes back with Young and they laugh about things together. What a great environment for hard studio assignments. You can still easily get a good grade since there's exam retakes plus extra credit, but that says nothing about the quality of the professor IMO. Leaves a ton to be desired.
Christopher Cadou ENES232 Anonymous 01/01/2022	Lectures are all over the place and hard to follow. Often gets behind on material resulting in learning hw topics the day it’s due, or learning exam topics the day before. Not very forgiving or helpful. Makes an already hard class 10x harder.
Christopher Cadou ENES232 Expecting a P Anonymous 07/11/2021	lets be real if this professor can learn how to teach that would be amazing. I couldn’t tolerate his lectures during online school at all because he just kept scrolling his screen and sharing hundreds of equations without solving any relevant problems. His exams were hard af so people had to retake it every other week.
Christopher Cadou ENES232 Anonymous 06/18/2021	Worst professor I have ever encountered. He was literally driving while zoom lectures and proctoring during exams. Picking up family members is not professional at all while exams and he wasn't reading his emails on time. Worst class just because of the professor take Kathrene or Young and it will be so much better!!
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/20/2021	Professor Hamel is one of the best ENES teachers I have had. The course content is very interesting to learn about but is also complex. However, Hamel is able to make the content understandable and not that bad. The grading method, conceptual fluency, can be very frustrating at times and probably was more annoying than the content itself. Professor Hamel is one of the very few teachers that want to connect with her students and did so by plays music at the start of class, shared thermodynamic memes, and talked with her students briefly during studio instead of just the assigned work. The memes can be dry at times, but that just shows that Hamel really wants to connect with her students and to make the course as enjoyable and interesting as possible. If you put in the work, ask for help, and do the homework and studios, you are on track for success in the course.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Anonymous 05/20/2021	One of the best professors at this school. She manages to teach a complicated and confusing topic in a way that makes it enjoyable and straightforward. The grading method takes some getting use to but it helps in the long run.
Jarred Young ENES232 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/08/2021	Young is the GOAT Take any and every class you can with him. Had Young for 102 and 232. He was great in both and makes material understandable. Also, Extra Credit is life saver!
Jarred Young ENES232 Anonymous 12/17/2020	Cares about his students. Gives a very generous opportunity for extra credit & very willing to explain confusing concepts/help with classwork assignments. Overall a really good experience with him for an online class.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/23/2020	Professor Hamel is one of the best professors in the Maryland capstone department. She, not only cares a lot for her student's success, but has the capability of actually teaching her students, allowing them to be successful. Also, a very engaging professor. If at all possible, take this professor for any engineer course possible.
Christopher Cadou ENES232 Anonymous 07/01/2019	Cadou gets a bad rep but from my experience, he's not as bad as people make him out to be. He goes over MOST of the concepts which is usually good enough and prepares you decently enough for exams if you actually try in discussion and re-do the homeworks, etc.
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 01/20/2019	One of the best professors I've ever had, she took one of the most dreaded engineering courses and made it approachable and enjoyable. You can do well in her class as long as you put in an honest effort, but be aware that there is very little curve for the class so you have to do well. I wish I went to lecture more, she even brings candy sometimes. There are so many nuances to this class that even if you do well on the homework, you can still mess up the exam due to small things. Make sure to show up to lecture to learn the tricks around these nuanced things
Catherine Hamel ENES232 Anonymous 12/11/2018	Really just an all around great professor. She's extremely friendly and helpful, and does her best to make sure her students succeed. Her lecture is easy to follow and engaging.
Kevin Calabro ENES232 Expecting an A- Anonymous 06/02/2018	Kevin is probably one of the best engineering professors I’ve had the pleasure of taking. Understand, however, that Thermodynamics is not by any means a pushover class, and so expect to struggle through problems that sometimes take hours. Kevin’s philosophy about homework’s is that if you struggle through it and complete harder questions on your own then you’ll be very well prepared for the exams, which could not be more true. Throughout the class I thought to myself “man this is just a huge pain in the ass why do I have to do this?” Then came the first midterm and I got an A. Material ramps up in difficulty, homework’s are even more irritating and challenging, then came the second midterm and I got an even higher grade. I honestly don’t think I would’ve done half as well in this class had I had any other professor. Always take Kevin if you can.
Raymond Sedwick ENES232 Expecting an A- aeroterp 01/02/2018	Dr. Sedwick was overall a pretty good professor and nice guy. His lectures were sometimes difficult to follow, but he was willing to help students out in class by answering questions. I sometimes felt that I had to teach myself some of the material. The homework assignments were the most useful tool for learning the material. He gave the numerical answers to the homeworks, but not solutions. This was helpful in checking work. Quizzes were given during discussion. Most of them were pretty difficult and had low averages. Exams were fair and slightly easier than the homework problems.
Kevin Calabro ENES232 Expecting a B+ cloak 04/25/2016	Kevin (because that's what he wants you to call him) is by far the best teacher I have had at UMD. His teaching style, note-taking style (exactly what you need, neatly organized, and nothing more or less), and general care about his students as people made him an amazing teacher. I am not one of those people who goes to office hours and tries to talk to my professor because frankly I don't usually need to and don't care, but Kevin is someone who I know actually cares about how well I do and how much I learn and is approachable and helpful. He is one of the few engineering professors who is actually a good person as well as amazing teacher and I 100% recommend him to anyone for any course that he teaches.
Kristen Hines ENES232 Anonymous 08/18/2015	Hands down once of the worst women I have ever encountered. She was incredibly condesending, insulting, and unprofessional throughout the whole course. She once told me I reminded her of her old boss, because he "was retook thermo and was stupid too." She would insult and gossip about students when they left the room to go to the bathroom, and once spent ten minutes of class explaining how affermative action is the only reason UMD has female engineering students. She is a living walking nightmare; aviod at all costs.
Kristen Hines ENES232 Anonymous 05/09/2015	I had Hines for 232 and yes she definitely knows what she's talking about but she is very condescending. I went into office hours for the very first time on the first week to ask for help, and when I asked my question she looked at me like I was crazy and that I should've known the answer. If a student asks for help I think that a professor should be wiling to help and not criticize. On top of that, she told me in front of several students that she think I should drop the class. I ended up getting a 92% and therefore a 79.7 in the class, but she still gave me a C. And when I asked her about it, she sent a mass email to all of her sections pointing me out and saying that students like me should not be begging for a grade. I wasn't begging, I just thought that because of my improvement I at least deserved a B in the class.
Kristen Hines ENES232 Expecting a B cheesecake 10/17/2014	She's a quirky teacher with a cool personality who clearly loves to teach thermo and wants to see her students succeed. That being said, she is not a great lecturer and her notes are very messy. I find it hard to follow her and consequently feel unprepared and lost when doing homework assignments. I would try to take other professors like Calabro, but she is the only one teaching this semester.
Kevin Calabro ENES232 Expecting a B parade 07/31/2014	Kevin is a great lecturer and I really felt comfortable with the material learned from Thermodynamics. However, he is a rather strict grader and gave almost no curve in the class even though there was one exam where our class average was 10% lower than both the other teacher's class averages. I ended up getting a B despite doing very well throughout the semester and I would've imagined I was at least top 15% in the class.
Chandrasekhar Thamire ENES232 Expecting an A soheikitsune 05/19/2013	Thamire made this class much clearer than the other professors from what I understand, and also made sure that we knew the material before moving on. I would definitely recommend taking him for any course that you can.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/10/2025

Prof Rubiano often did examples in class that were harder/more intense than the exam which helps you feel super comfortable with the topics when taking the exam. A great professor!

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
06/09/2025

Dr. Rubiano really cares about his students and provides us with material and practice to succeed. I felt that having the large majority of the content part of the course be done individually and then the connective pieces done in class were particularly helpful. Dr Rubiano’s videos were great! I got the most out of them when I took notes but I didn’t always have time to do that, but even just watching them after class did wonders to prepare me for exams. It really got out of the way the introduction of the simpler key concepts and presented them in a format where I could revisit them when doing homework. I like how he talks to the class about stuff other than what a textbook includes. There’s many a lesson to learn from his advice on being an engineering student and what to do for other classes.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/05/2025

Bluntly put Dr. Rubiano might be too smart for a lot of students. If you miss something he says, you gotta ask or come to his office hours. Once you get that hang of the class you learn to love it. His practice problems are sometimes too intricate, but they are what prepares you for the more difficult exam problems. He makes a habit of reminding us to care about learning, and not worrying about grades. At times is hard to do that, but when you realize what you're in college for, it's easier to do. His lectures are clear and covers a lot in 50 minutes. His life lessons are priceless. I would take any class he offers. He is organized and responds to messages in less than an hour (don't send him emails, send him a class message through Elms). I think the only downside of the higher difficulty of his class is that you expect the exams to be impossible hard, and that can be anxiety inducing at times. But on the other hand, once you take the first exam you realize how easy they are because of how much you've learned. Maybe Rubiano is not for everyone, but surely for anyone who truly cares about learning. You'll learn a lot.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/03/2025

I only got an A because of professor Rubiano's office hours. I had Anderson for Thermo, but he only teaches you how to use equations. Rubiano finally made it click all for me. Any question I had for Anderson that he made up something for, Rubiano had a clear and concise answer for. I had Rubiano for ENES221, so I made an effort to go to his office hours. Just like in 221, Rubiano will explain anything you ask him in a way that just clicks. I wish I could've taken Thermo with him. At least I'm glad you can just look up his summary lectures on youtube to study for exams. They're a lifesaver when crunching for the final.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a C-
Anonymous
06/03/2025

As a student who got a C- in this class, I can tell you Rubiano does not like slackers. And seeing his reviews here, slackers apparently don't like him either. That being said, Rubiano's class is as organized as they come. His thought process for problem solving is something I'll take with me forever, and I only wish I had noticed this sooner. Forget about his youtube, his classes are amazing. He does not dilly dally with the math but rather with the problem setup and how to approach any problem. He goes over many complex examples in each class. I think there's a learning curve to his teaching style, and if you're not there to see him teach and go through that curve yourself, you're just going to be frustrated. I know I was, but that was all my fault, not his. If you're here to get some sound advice, here it is: do NOT listen to what all these people that very obviously weren't expecting an A are complaining about. Lectures are a 10 out of 10, class examples will prepare you for the hardest problems, and he is on another level of smart. If you don't like rubiano as a professor, you probably didn't get to really know him.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
06/03/2025

Rubiano is really strict and he can be, cause he knows what he's talking about. The guy is really smart and conveys that knowledge with ease - pun intended. If you make it to class and participate, he'll be really helpful with absolutely anything you need. If you have never shown your face and intend to pass the class by watching what has always been intended to be a review, not an actual lecture, he's gonna be really harsh with you. You miss a quiz, you get a zero. You miss a deadline, you don't get a second chance. You ask for points back, he'll demonstrate how wrong you are and prove that you actually deserved fewer points. IMO he cares very much about the students that put it the work, and will give hell to those that want to get an A for doing very little or expect a curve. Also, you don't need the textbook at all. He covers a lot more than the textbook does in class.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
06/02/2025

He just doesn't teach. I had him for ENES220 last semester and, while we were still expected to watch his videos sometimes, he still tried to teach course material in class. This semester, he switched over entirely to his stupid lecture videos. I gave them a genuine try, but they are too general and spend way too much time on practice problems. Attending class felt like a complete waste of time because he would spend the entire class half-completing practice problems and harping on the most pointless details (spending 15 minutes teaching us how to look up values in tables during three different classes). While the 'flipped classroom' style teaching just isn't for me in general, I felt like he did a particularly bad job executing it. He would also forgot to post things on gradescope (homework assignments, exam grades). He had to delay the homework due date multiple different times because he did not remember to open up the assignment until hours before it was due. He says he only curves people who 'deserve it,' but my final percentage grade is 3% higher than the one calculated from my scores. Unless he felt like someone who was visibly never paying attention in class despite sitting in the front row (me) deserved to go from an A to an A+ (which is not an important grade distinction), I'm pretty sure he curves everyone's final grades. There was also a ~3% curve for ENES220 when he taught it, too, so I think that might apply to all of his classes.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a B
Anonymous
06/02/2025

Half his morning classroom was always empty. I think the hate comes from thinking you can sporadically come to class because you can watch his lectures later. You miss out and are going to be lost when you do come to class if you rely on supplementary resources and call that his class. Rubiano is by far the best professor I've had. He is extremely organized and his lecture videos are very clear. He assigns an enormous amount of work in terms of keeping up with recorded lectures and practice problems, but if you do keep up, and A is very easy to get. I personally skipped class a lot at first because I knew his lectures were online, but after I dedicated more time a lot more time to this class, everything was clear as water. He does not curve but I did get a small bump in my grade as I performed substantially better with every exam there was, which he says he does. 5/5

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/28/2025

Rubiano is not a terrible professor. His class is structured where you have to watch a video before class to learn and take notes, then in class he goes over example problems. The videos are 8-12 minutes and can all be seen on his youtube channel less boring lectures. If you want to learn anything from them you will have to take 30-45 minutes of taking notes per video because they are extremely fast paced and require lots of stopping and writing down. Most of what he says in class was "if you watched the videos this concept should be obvious" or "if you are unsure about this concept make sure to rewatch the video". The examples he goes over in class are not the most helpful with him often setting up a problem very quickly with variables then saying that it should make sense and moving on. If you missed a video or don't feel you understand don't go to that class it will be hard to get anything from it, Most of the class stopped going to lecture after the first week and only came for Friday studios. He started to say he was going to give quizzes during class time(which the syllabus specifically says wouldn't happen) to try to get people to attend class. The quizzes did end up getting dropped and didn't hurt your grade at the end of the semester. The exams are pretty fair and if you show improvement he gives a healthy curve even though he says all semester he won't curve. Another important thing to note is that he assigns random group for the project which is a little annoying but not the worst. Overall he is a nice guy and if you are willing to learn mostly from videos and on your own he's a fine professor to take.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Anonymous
05/28/2025

DO NOT TAKE RUBIANO unless you are confident in your ability to teach yourself the material for an entire course. Yes its does help to go to lecture and discussion and to watch his youtube videos (which are the only source of material you get) but with that being said, I did all of this and still almost didn't pass the class. Reasons I would avoid Rubiano at ALL COSTS: 1) He doesn't teach. He assigns you youtube videos from his channel to watch before every lecture which could be helpful except for the fact that the videos cover material as if you've taken the course before or have a background in thermo or the concepts covered in the class which is not the case for most people who take this class. This fact makes the videos a little more useful when studying for the final but I was not to go back and rewatch every video while trying to study for 4 other finals. The videos are not helpful and caused me to be so lost from the start and had to try to play catchup the rest of the semester. He also just has wrong equations in his videos 2) He "teaches" to the test and the homework. He is not interested in actually having you know the material from start to finish, he just wants you to have the exact amount info he feels you need to be able to complete the HW. He also told our class that a specific topic wouldn't be covered on an exam and then there was an entire question on that topic so you can't trust what he says 3) HE DOESNT CURVE. He claims that his sections had the highest averages on the exams but I dont see how that is possible since he doesn't teach and often cant finish examples in class or gets them wrong. He doesn't curve the class but i will say he does curve at the end on an individual basis which I really appreciated. 4) (less of a reason but thought I'd share) He just wants to be liked. I couldn't tell you the amount of time he spent in lecture complaining to us that he graded his exam question the day after the exam and is really upset that this one other guy hasn't graded his yet and he would grade the whole exam if he could blah blah blah. 5) He doesn't respond to emails or canvas messages unless he is literally in the classroom which can be very frustrating. TLDR: He doesn't teach, you have to watch his videos which are too fast and not good for learning thermo for the first time, he doesn't curve, and honestly I don't know if Rubiano would have been able to pass our final

Christopher Cadou
ENES232

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/27/2025

There are definitely better professors you can have but Cadou is pretty decent - wouldn't change my whole schedule for a different professor. Grade wise there was about a 3% curve in my class given that our averages for the midterms and final were 65 55 85 80 ish. The lectures are pretty good as he basically goes through the already posted notes which are posted for the entire course the first day. He was forgiving when I forgot to submit my studio assignment the third week and gave me full credit, he also helped a lot during studios. He was also lenient on the project, most groups got A's. He also said he bumps your grade up if your on the edge if your test scores increase through the semester. I think that he could do more examples during class but if you watch Rubianos videos you will be great which I didn't do until the end. Just look up "Less Boring Lectures" on youtube and the entire course is there. Make sure you redo all the homeworks on your own and do the practice tests on your own, also don't miss out on the (kind of hidden) link to conceptual practice quizzes in the announcements for the tests which many people missed but helped a lot. I heard of many friends taking the course over the winter which I probably would have done because there is no project and the tests were much easier, the average grades were also much higher, although it is a lot more compressed and stressful resulting in not as much retention of the content and for a class as important as thermo it really depends on how hard your semester is.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/27/2025

He makes thermo pretty easy to get an A or A- in. If you go to every lecture, do the homeworks, and do the studios, you should be guaranteed a good grade depending on how you do in exams. He has a really helpful YouTube channel that he always plugs during class, you usually have to watch the assigned video before lecture and he talks about that video during lecture, they are only like 5-10 minutes long. His lectures are a little bit boring, however, and he talks in the really monotone voice that can be hard to listen to. Interestingly, his exam averages are higher than the exam averages in other sections, im guessing he just provides us better resources than the other 232 instructors. He adds a few extra points to the end of your course grade if he feels like you are trying (doing all your assignments and showing improvements on exams), he pushed my 88 to a 92. Even if you do terrible on one exam, he will let it slide if you show improvement.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/26/2025

This experience makes me want to take higher level classes with him. Young offers many extra credit opportunities. This semester, the opportunities amounted to about a whole 4% grade increase if you did everything. That being said, the lecture quality was mixed for me. At times, I preferred to self-study rather than attend lecture. He also can be disorganized, posting lecture notes and videos late into the week, as well as sometimes not opening homeworks until hours before they are due (this is not a big deal as the class portal has the homework file posted a whole week in advance usually, but you should be aware of it). However, he makes up for it by being excellent at answering questions and clarifying topics when you do ask. Very personable, very kind, very nice. Made the class very interesting, especially at the end where there was an optional week where we went over thermodynamics in sci-fi cinema and real-life application. Tl;dr : Some things might not click immediately in thermo, and his lecture quality is mixed when it comes to making it easier than the book. Make sure to ask questions. Use portal in elms to access homeworks. There are plenty of extra credit opportunities. Office hours are very important.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/24/2025

Professor Young’s class was disorganized, and his teaching style was not for me. Most of our grades weren’t posted until the final weeks of school, and our homework would often be posted a few hours before it was due. His teaching style isn’t problematic by itself; however, he mostly teaches using lecture slides and definitions, which can be hard to engage with and leaves a lot of textbook-browsing to the student. He also tries to emphasize how hard the course is and how much we need to study, which I personally felt made the material seem more intimidating than it actually is. He is a chill guy, and the discussion sections were good - it also helps that the grading is pretty nice. However, taking another professor will likely make this class easier.

Paul Anderson
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/24/2025

Professor Anderson is the best! Although I wasn’t technically a part of his section, I started coming to his lectures after not doing super well on the first exam. Not only was he super nice and welcoming, he made it very easy to understand a topic I was initially confused by. I went from a C on my first exam straight up to an A+ on the next one! He’s a great guy and super willing to help you learn and succeed. Definitely take Anderson for Thermo if you have the opportunity to!

Christopher Cadou
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/23/2025

He's a good guy but his lectures are so boring and he does not teach the content well. Our class averages are well below other professors like Rubiano. Try to take Rubiano or Hamel if you can. He would not get to all the material and tell us to teach ourselves from the textbook, or lecture past the regular class hours. He would also blame us, the students, for having a low class average, when he is the guy teaching us.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/20/2025

Top Dawg on that youtube grind. He spends a lot of time making those youtube videos, they are very very good for teaching thermo.

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/19/2025

There are good and bad things regarding the way Sedwick teaches. On the plus, you don't have friday studios, on a minus, your going to be writing lecture notes for like three hours a week. During class he expects you to ask questions but nobody really knowns what they are doing. Class average fell below passing for the first two exams so we got a significant curve ontop of exam rewrites which was an extra 8% on the exams. Overall not hard to pass but allows people to get through without understanding any of the material or putting in significant effort. Was a nice guy and wants you to fully understand concepts but the execution is not great.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/19/2025

He doesn't deserve the hate. He's a great guy who cares about his students. I brought up errors in my exam grading, and he immediately fixed them. His YouTube lectures are good, but I did wish he lectured a little more. He gave great examples, and our class always had the highest averages for exams. He gave quizzes, but they ended up not counting towards finals. Do a great review before exams. I recommend him greatly, made me interested in the subject.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Anonymous
05/19/2025

Everyone else is hating, I've had him two semesters in a row and have gone to class every day. He tells you to watch a 10/15-minute video before each class, in class briefly summarizes it, and does 1-2 complex problems applying it. He explains things conceptually very well (very helpful in office hours), and does good reviews before exams. Watching the videos can be boring, but his averages for exams are significantly higher than other sections. There is no reason to avoid taking him.

Christopher Cadou
ENES232

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
05/16/2025

His lectures are genuine, but not too helpful. All his notes are posted on canvas and he just copies off that and reads it out in class. I mainly learned from the homeworks during TA office hours, and studios. Cadou doesn't attend his own office hours half the time but my TAs were good so wasn't a big deal. He doesn't really curve very much, mostly a couple of points here and there, and based mostly on if he "thinks you've improved throughout the year." He's not too bad compared to the alternatives tho

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/11/2025

You either love taking notes outside of class and not having Friday studio, or you struggle with self pacing practice problems and only learn from the homework. I copied the slides from the videos verbatim and did not listen to the videos, which was free points, but I didn't really learn anything from them. The homework is standard across the sections and they taught me what I needed for some of the test questions. The test questions are similar to the studio problems (which you will never see in class unless you ask for them explicitly). I did the homework during class and did not pay attention to his ramblings, which was the only thing that kept me awake during class. He basically just repeats the stuff you write down from the videos. Super sweet guy, but maybe try to take Dr. Anderson or Dr. Hamel for thermo if you want to enjoy the class.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/10/2025

He just doesn't really teach. As others have said, he assigns videos before every lecture to watch, but these aren't proper lectures - they're Organic Chem Tutor-style reviews of the material that are 10 minutes long. (Even if they were full lectures, I hate the flipped learning model). Rubiano says we should be taking ~30 mins to watch them and write notes, but that's absurdly frustrating and hard to learn from. Then, in lectures, he'll do a problem or two, but I rarely felt like it elevated my understanding. Most of my actual 'learning' happened during Friday studios and homeworks when I actually had to solve problems myself. Also says he won't curve our class, except if he thinks you individually deserve a higher grade. But I always go to Anderson for office hours (he's great) so how would he know how much effort I've put in? He's an okay guy I guess, makes the classroom feel a bit stifled but he's not, like, actively harmful to the learning environment. Just a very frustrating professor to learn from.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
05/10/2025

Hes a good professor when he actually decides to teach but that's about half the time, he expects that everyone has watched the youtube videos that he made several years ago, admitadly they are good but not good enough that I want to be introduced to topics, also never believe a promise this guy makes I don't think a single one has been true the entire semester

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Anonymous
05/08/2025

Teaching from YouTube videos the whole year should not be allowed at UMD. I would understand if it was supplemental like some other teachers do, but this is ridiculous.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/07/2025

Wow we have hit a new low. I can't say I've had a professor like him. His other thermo reviews are extremely accurate, in that he definitely does not teach well, if at all. His class time is him spending the time plugging his youtube channel. Mid-semester, he switched from calling it youtube videos to "online lectures". The channel's name "Less Boring Lectures" is definitely false info. He also started giving out more quizzes because he was depressed no one showed up to his class. I learned from reverse teaching myself from the homeworks. I can't wait to be done with this class. I almost feel sorry.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/06/2025

Professor Rubiano does not teach. Instead of giving real lectures, he assigns YouTube videos and reads through confusing or incorrect examples in class, rarely finishing them or explaining clearly. His lectures are disorganized, often inaccurate, and not aligned with assignments. Students are left to rely on textbooks, online videos, and their own efforts to learn the material. Despite seeming nice, he’s petty and disingenuous. His approach makes learning harder, not easier. He shouldn’t be teaching at UMD if all he does is shove his online materials down the throat.

Andres Rubiano Acosta
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/05/2025

Horrible Professor. He does not teach during lectures, and instead has assigned YouTube videos to watch to learn content. His lectures instead consist of working partially through example problems which he does not fully answer or explain. He also decides to randomly have in-class quizzes, which are against the course-wide syllabus. Watching the video lectures for content is not enough to do well in the class, as reading the textbook is a necessity for this professor. Do not take this professor if you can.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
04/21/2025

Best teacher for this course. She has very thorough notes and everything that is practiced in class is similar to the exams. HWs were occasionally difficult, but office hours were super helpful. It's tempting to skip the class and look over the uploaded lecture notes, but from personal experience please don't because I was only a couple of points away from an A.

Paul Anderson
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/23/2025

Super friendly, dedicated teacher who really cares about the material and his students. He seemed genuinely excited when something clicked for me during office hours.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
02/21/2025

Easily the best thermo teacher I could ask for. Her notes are incredibly thorough and if you have any questions, she always has the best example scenarios to give explanations. Her office hours are super helpful. She made thermo so easy

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
02/12/2025

I took 232 over the winter with her and Kevin, they are both super good profs but Hamel's lecture videos were super thorough and valuable because she works through examples for each concept and demonstrates how the concept fits into the practice problem. SHe is genuinely the best professor at UMD.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/10/2024

Greatest professor I've had since kindergarten. Brilliant homework too.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/21/2024

ENES232 might be one of the best taught and structured courses at this university. Having Hamel makes it definitely the best taught and structured courses at this university.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/09/2024

Dr. J is not a very good lecturer, I often left class with many questions and had to relearn the material. However, he makes up for this by being very very helpful one-on-one and by keeping his lectures and studios engaging. Young is the type to answer your question with another question to test your understanding, and even though this can be annoying at first he is very good at helping you find an answer and understand difficult concepts. Young also posts lecture videos online with corresponding notes for every lecture and it's really helpful if you need to go back if you missed something. He curved the class a lot and is a really nice guy.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
10/14/2024

This is the best professor I had at UMD. There are no criticisms one could have. I wish all of my courses could be taught in the same manner with the same passion.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
06/01/2024

She is the BEST. If you you really wanna enjoy thermo and understand it easily just take her section without any hesitation.

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/24/2024

I loved how he posted lecture videos so we could reference information outside of class. He was always so nice and always had a smile on his face. He obviously knew the information so well and was very good at teaching it and trying to find the best ways for students to remember and understand the concepts. He also has six cats which is pretty cool, as well as the story behind them. Anyway, I would very much recommend Dr. Sedwick.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/17/2024

Very polished notes, caring and helpful during office hours. Made the material feel very easy

Kevin Calabro
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/15/2024

My favorite teacher Ive had by far. His lectures are informative yet direct, his teaching style is rigid but patient, his grading is meticulous yet accurate. You will come out of his classes thinking "yeah, I deserved the grade that I got", because he is extremely fair and expects you to know the course material because he has taught it to you so well. He could teach mechanics to a kindergartener and thermodynamics to a houseplant. I have taken three courses with him and he has done a fantastic job instructing every single one. The best part is he is such a decent dude. Super respectful to his students and always willing to give even the most objectively "that kid has not been paying attention" questions a sincere and thorough answer. Only professor I would wake up at 8am for throughout the entire semester. Take this man if you have the chance.

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/11/2024

After looking at his reviews, I was a little scared to take this professor for thermo but I was pleasantly surprised. Compared to many other Thermo professors, Sedwick arguably has some of--if not the best and most organized notes. Instead of lectures you watch very detailed lecture videos and come to class with any questions about that. This is where I would say the main downside of the class is. The lecture videos can be pretty tedious to get through, especially by the end of the semester. I sometimes would just look at the slides he posted instead of watching the videos just because that would shave off like 1.5+ hours of time. Still, he's great at explaining things, super approachable, and was absolutely a professor I'd take again.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/14/2024

I had a 9am and never skipped once, she is INCREDIBLE.

Joshua Cocker
ENES232

Anonymous
03/14/2024

Amazing professor in every sense. Absolutely cannot go wrong with Josh.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Anonymous
02/29/2024

Amazing professor. Clearly passionate about teaching and ensuring that you understand the content easily. BTW, the actual exam is much harder than the practice ones.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/26/2024

Ditto the other comments.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A-
acthakur
01/24/2024

Absolutely and easily the most helpful professor I have ever had. Do not skip out on her office hours they are easily the most helpful resource she offers. Depending on your TA luck, they also have great office hours. The lectures themselves are mediocrely helpful, but that's more the nature of the content than the professor. If you are struggling just talk to her and she will almost ensure that you are all caught up in your understanding. Again, do NOT skip out on her office hours, I would have an A+ if I had started going before the first exam.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
12/15/2023

If you have the opportunity to choose prof. Hamel as your instructor for any course, please do yourself a favor and choose her. I took her thermodynamics course in the fall of 2022, 1 year ago, and I am still close with her today. During the time I had her I could sense that she cared not only for success in her class, but in my career as a whole. At the time I was new to the university and was navigating through the different engineering resources in terms of internship searching. She introduced me to careers4engineers and how to navigate that, and she was always encouraging me to ask her questions not related to the course if I had any. Through this class I feel like I built not only thermodynamics knowledge but an important and meaningful connection. I have asked her for multiple recommendations and she happily did all of them on top of her day-to-day work and busy schedule. She is a genuine individual and as long as you show her that you are willing to put in the work to understand the materials, she will literally bend over backwards to help you succeed.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting a B+
Anonymous
12/07/2023

Goated. Absolutely amazing professor. Good notes, lectures, extremely helpful inside and outside of the classroom. If you do not have her as a professor at some point, you're missing out.

Paul Anderson
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
10/04/2023

Paul is a great professor and a great guy in general. You can really tell he cares about teaching and wants everybody to succeed. Lectures are well prepared, the homework assignments are fair, practice exams get posted, and you get 2 tries on every exam, so if you want a good grade in this class it is not that hard as long as you put in some effort.

Paul Anderson
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
06/06/2023

Dr Anderson kept us engaged and excited for the materials the whole semester. The grading scheme is pretty frustrating and it feels like every week we had an exam. But he grades the project, HW, and regrades leniently. The final was much easier than the midterms. Make sure you know your multiple choice conceptual questions because that makes up a lot of points.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/27/2023

Great guy, he tells jokes and is very generous and caring to the students.

Paul Anderson
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/25/2023

Dr. Anderson gives his lectures well and typically explains things clearly. At times, he had a little trouble wording a topic, but it was his first time teaching the class this semester but have to keep in mind this was his first time teaching the class. He's extremely friendly, and if you ever have a question after class or go to office hours, he's great at answering them and explaining it clearly in that type of setting.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/22/2023

Dr. Young is a very genuine professor; he wants you to succeed and tries to help you do so, but will jokingly call you out for dumb questions. His lectures are fine, but you can honestly get by with the course notes he provides on ELMS. They're very neat and available in both worksheet and video format, so basically the entire course is available to you from the start. Overall, funny guy, very organized, no complaints. Only real downside is he's one of those "let's try that again" people when the class doesn't do a passionate enough "good morning." Learned a lot, though, and I would take him again. As for class structure: One weekly homework assignment that usually takes 1-3 hours, and one weekly classwork for the studio sections (posted online). Lectures and studio sections are not mandatory, but occasionally there will be some unannounced extra credit opportunity you can only get by attending, so don't skip. 3 midterms + a final, but the midterms are taken two times each (so midterm 1 was actually 1A and 1B, with 1B being 1 week after 1A). There is no partial credit, but they grade them within 1-2 days and you do regrade requests on Gradescope - 90% of points back for numerical errors (ex. calculator mistype), 20% back for conceptual errors (you didn't know what you were doing), and an additional 10% back for sanity checks ("my answer clearly doesn't make sense and this is why"). The higher grade of each set of midterms is kept. The system sounds harsh but can be quite forgiving, as the questions are typically pretty formulaic. The final DID grade with partial credit (and it was almost exactly like the practice final), and there was an unspecified (not shown in ELMS) curve for the course grade, and he doesn't seem to do minus grades (A- = A). Bumped my 88 to a flat A. There's also a final project that looks like a lot but was graded quite leniently.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/16/2023

Chill

Paul Anderson
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/12/2023

Professor Anderson taught thermodynamics in a way I could understand, and he was able to answer any questions I had. He also had a lot of energy in each class, which I thought was a nice bonus. I will note that the answers given by the instructors on the course piazza were often vague, but answers given after class or during office hours were pretty direct.

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Anonymous
04/20/2023

Sedwick, from what I can understand from friends in other sections, runs the class a bit differently. Other professors have the class set up so that you have two lectures, and a discussion with graded group work. Sedwick has it set up so that you only have one lecture and one discussion with no graded discussion worksheet. Instead, he has it so that you watch and write notes for two ~50 minute videos a week due before lecture. This comes with both upsides and downsides which I'll get to later. As far as a lecturer, professor Sedwick has a high expectation for student engagement in the course and material, he is a strong believer in deriving formulas and understanding where they came from opposed to memorizing just the formulas. As such do not expect a formula sheet in any of the exams. His lectures mostly review the content from the lecture videos, and provide an opportunity for questions. He answers questions very thoroughly, what I would think were quick questions have gotten lengthy explanations. This means you'll definitely not come away with any misunderstandings if you pay attention, but also slows down the pace of class a bit. As for the upsides and downsides I mentioned earlier, the lecture videos mean 12% of your grade is free points for writing notes, and you don't have to go to class one day a week. The downside is they can be very tedious and take about 40-80% longer than the videos themselves since he expects you to write all the writing on the slides verbatim for full credit, and there is a lot to copy down (granted I do tend to write slow). I think overall I have put in more time in Sedwick's class than I would have put in other sections, but came away with a better understanding of thermo as a result. Overall i'd recommend him if you are OK with a more no-nonsense type professor and want a good understanding of thermo and are willing to put in the requisite time.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
04/17/2023

Catherine is the best engineering professor I have had so far. She truly cares about her students learning and even takes the time to learn all of our names. Her lecture style is good and not just reading off slides. She does the examples with us, and takes the time to fully explain and answer questions. The class isn't bad, you get to take all of the midterms twice, but there is no partial credit which kind of stinks. They are pretty lenient when grading homework and studios, however they grade the final project harshly so make sure you put effort into that, especially the formatting.

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
03/22/2023

I had a terrible experience with this professor. Snarky doesn't begin to describe how arrogant he is. He was very rude and unprofessional towards me, including with direct insults. Furthermore, he had a policy where he would force us to take notes on his lecture videos and then force us to submit pictures of those notes twice a week, while still making us come to class by taking attendance. In class, he said nothing of value, only inefficiently explained example problems that he already thoroughly covered in the video lectures. He also refused to answer my questions in class about the material, instead replying, "look at your notes again," several times. If I had the answer in my notes I wouldn't have asked! If you want a professor who wastes your time, is rude and mean-spirited, and is generally unhelpful and wants nothing more than to satisfy his own enormous ego, this is the professor for you.

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
03/07/2023

I have a good grade in this course in spite, not because, of his teaching, and I am shocked that he has any positive reviews, since my experience with Raymond was terrible. He is an incompetent lecturer and grader, rude, and refuses to answer basic questions, telling students to just look at their notes again. Of course, if they had the answer in their notes, the wouldn't ask! Additionally, he has this extremely annoying policy of forcing students to take notes on his mind-numbingly boring video lectures, and then submit pictures of those notes, and still forces us to come to class where he not only takes attendance, but also gives useless, slow paced lectures which cover the exact same material as the video lectures. All of these are just some examples of his infuriating behavior. I would give this "professor" 0/5 stars if I could and 5/5 for wasting my time. Avoid him at all costs if you want a professor that actually teaches anything and doesn't assign endless busywork. Thank you Sedwick for making thermodynamics my least favorite class of my college career.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/24/2022

Don't even need to explain. You need this professor period. But do watch out for the final project it's werid

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/22/2022

Goated.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
08/20/2022

Professor Hamel is the best professor I've had because she treats her students like people, not numbers. She goes beyond her call of duty in terms of helping students and holding office hours. She not only knows her material, but she also knows how to teach it well. She understands her students and concerns the class may have.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
08/19/2022

Professor Hamel is probably one of the only professors I’ve had who actually puts in visible effort into her students. I had her over the Summer and despite the short time she had to give us material, she put in her best effort to make sure everyone understood the topics. She also gave us multiple opportunities to receive extra credit to boost our grades. Hands down one of the best professors I’ve had so far.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
05/19/2022

Catherine is the best engineering professor I have ever had, without a doubt. Her friendliness and genuine care for her students make it a pleasure to interact with her. She goes above and beyond to be helpful in office hours and on the course Piazza. Thermo is a difficult subject, but all assignments and exams are fair. It may take a significant amount of effort to do well because of the nature of the material, but it is definitely possible, especially because Catherine is such a good professor. She explains things clearly, takes questions, and will slow down or repeat things if asked. The combination of how good she is at explaining difficult material and how much she genuinely cares about your success make this class thoroughly enjoyable.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting a D+
Anonymous
04/26/2022

Decent guy, but bad lecturer and harsh grader. Lectures go over basic material with too many equations that you're expected to memorize. Exams have no partial credit and expect to lose sets of 10 points for sign errors that are inconsistent or other simple mistakes.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Anonymous
03/12/2022

Seriously don't understand the praise for this guy. I enjoy his humor and that's about it. If you want to watch someone slowly write definitions on the board for 45 minutes, not 50 because he's usually late, this is your guy. If you want to cover one extremely easy in class example per week that is nothing like the assignments or exams, he's your guy. If you enjoy the childish game of the lecturer demanding repeat enthusiastic "good mornings" before starting lecture, also your guy. If you want to lose 20 points on a 30 point question because of one error, he's definitely your guy. The grading for these exams is so absurd. "conceptual fluency" is a joke. Incredible that you can get all the right numbers yet get 0 points on a 30 point question because you did or didn't use a negative sign, extremely ironic when other universities teach this class with opposite definitions of heat and work in/out. If the concepts are so important, why is so much time spent on definition, not concepts or examples? The TA is extremely arrogant and generally not helpful at all. Literally laughs at students questions, then goes back with Young and they laugh about things together. What a great environment for hard studio assignments. You can still easily get a good grade since there's exam retakes plus extra credit, but that says nothing about the quality of the professor IMO. Leaves a ton to be desired.

Christopher Cadou
ENES232

Anonymous
01/01/2022

Lectures are all over the place and hard to follow. Often gets behind on material resulting in learning hw topics the day it’s due, or learning exam topics the day before. Not very forgiving or helpful. Makes an already hard class 10x harder.

Christopher Cadou
ENES232

Expecting a P
Anonymous
07/11/2021

lets be real if this professor can learn how to teach that would be amazing. I couldn’t tolerate his lectures during online school at all because he just kept scrolling his screen and sharing hundreds of equations without solving any relevant problems. His exams were hard af so people had to retake it every other week.

Christopher Cadou
ENES232

Anonymous
06/18/2021

Worst professor I have ever encountered. He was literally driving while zoom lectures and proctoring during exams. Picking up family members is not professional at all while exams and he wasn't reading his emails on time. Worst class just because of the professor take Kathrene or Young and it will be so much better!!

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
05/20/2021

Professor Hamel is one of the best ENES teachers I have had. The course content is very interesting to learn about but is also complex. However, Hamel is able to make the content understandable and not that bad. The grading method, conceptual fluency, can be very frustrating at times and probably was more annoying than the content itself. Professor Hamel is one of the very few teachers that want to connect with her students and did so by plays music at the start of class, shared thermodynamic memes, and talked with her students briefly during studio instead of just the assigned work. The memes can be dry at times, but that just shows that Hamel really wants to connect with her students and to make the course as enjoyable and interesting as possible. If you put in the work, ask for help, and do the homework and studios, you are on track for success in the course.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Anonymous
05/20/2021

One of the best professors at this school. She manages to teach a complicated and confusing topic in a way that makes it enjoyable and straightforward. The grading method takes some getting use to but it helps in the long run.

Jarred Young
ENES232

Expecting an A
Anonymous
04/08/2021

Young is the GOAT Take any and every class you can with him. Had Young for 102 and 232. He was great in both and makes material understandable. Also, Extra Credit is life saver!

Jarred Young
ENES232

Anonymous
12/17/2020

Cares about his students. Gives a very generous opportunity for extra credit & very willing to explain confusing concepts/help with classwork assignments. Overall a really good experience with him for an online class.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting an A+
Anonymous
05/23/2020

Professor Hamel is one of the best professors in the Maryland capstone department. She, not only cares a lot for her student's success, but has the capability of actually teaching her students, allowing them to be successful. Also, a very engaging professor. If at all possible, take this professor for any engineer course possible.

Christopher Cadou
ENES232

Anonymous
07/01/2019

Cadou gets a bad rep but from my experience, he's not as bad as people make him out to be. He goes over MOST of the concepts which is usually good enough and prepares you decently enough for exams if you actually try in discussion and re-do the homeworks, etc.

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Expecting a C+
Anonymous
01/20/2019

One of the best professors I've ever had, she took one of the most dreaded engineering courses and made it approachable and enjoyable. You can do well in her class as long as you put in an honest effort, but be aware that there is very little curve for the class so you have to do well. I wish I went to lecture more, she even brings candy sometimes. There are so many nuances to this class that even if you do well on the homework, you can still mess up the exam due to small things. Make sure to show up to lecture to learn the tricks around these nuanced things

Catherine Hamel
ENES232

Anonymous
12/11/2018

Really just an all around great professor. She's extremely friendly and helpful, and does her best to make sure her students succeed. Her lecture is easy to follow and engaging.

Kevin Calabro
ENES232

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
06/02/2018

Kevin is probably one of the best engineering professors I’ve had the pleasure of taking. Understand, however, that Thermodynamics is not by any means a pushover class, and so expect to struggle through problems that sometimes take hours. Kevin’s philosophy about homework’s is that if you struggle through it and complete harder questions on your own then you’ll be very well prepared for the exams, which could not be more true. Throughout the class I thought to myself “man this is just a huge pain in the ass why do I have to do this?” Then came the first midterm and I got an A. Material ramps up in difficulty, homework’s are even more irritating and challenging, then came the second midterm and I got an even higher grade. I honestly don’t think I would’ve done half as well in this class had I had any other professor. Always take Kevin if you can.

Raymond Sedwick
ENES232

Expecting an A-
aeroterp
01/02/2018

Dr. Sedwick was overall a pretty good professor and nice guy. His lectures were sometimes difficult to follow, but he was willing to help students out in class by answering questions. I sometimes felt that I had to teach myself some of the material. The homework assignments were the most useful tool for learning the material. He gave the numerical answers to the homeworks, but not solutions. This was helpful in checking work. Quizzes were given during discussion. Most of them were pretty difficult and had low averages. Exams were fair and slightly easier than the homework problems.

Kevin Calabro
ENES232

Expecting a B+
cloak
04/25/2016

Kevin (because that's what he wants you to call him) is by far the best teacher I have had at UMD. His teaching style, note-taking style (exactly what you need, neatly organized, and nothing more or less), and general care about his students as people made him an amazing teacher. I am not one of those people who goes to office hours and tries to talk to my professor because frankly I don't usually need to and don't care, but Kevin is someone who I know actually cares about how well I do and how much I learn and is approachable and helpful. He is one of the few engineering professors who is actually a good person as well as amazing teacher and I 100% recommend him to anyone for any course that he teaches.

Kristen Hines
ENES232

Anonymous
08/18/2015

Hands down once of the worst women I have ever encountered. She was incredibly condesending, insulting, and unprofessional throughout the whole course. She once told me I reminded her of her old boss, because he "was retook thermo and was stupid too." She would insult and gossip about students when they left the room to go to the bathroom, and once spent ten minutes of class explaining how affermative action is the only reason UMD has female engineering students. She is a living walking nightmare; aviod at all costs.

Kristen Hines
ENES232

Anonymous
05/09/2015

I had Hines for 232 and yes she definitely knows what she's talking about but she is very condescending. I went into office hours for the very first time on the first week to ask for help, and when I asked my question she looked at me like I was crazy and that I should've known the answer. If a student asks for help I think that a professor should be wiling to help and not criticize. On top of that, she told me in front of several students that she think I should drop the class. I ended up getting a 92% and therefore a 79.7 in the class, but she still gave me a C. And when I asked her about it, she sent a mass email to all of her sections pointing me out and saying that students like me should not be begging for a grade. I wasn't begging, I just thought that because of my improvement I at least deserved a B in the class.

Kristen Hines
ENES232

Expecting a B
cheesecake
10/17/2014

She's a quirky teacher with a cool personality who clearly loves to teach thermo and wants to see her students succeed. That being said, she is not a great lecturer and her notes are very messy. I find it hard to follow her and consequently feel unprepared and lost when doing homework assignments. I would try to take other professors like Calabro, but she is the only one teaching this semester.

Kevin Calabro
ENES232

Expecting a B
parade
07/31/2014

Kevin is a great lecturer and I really felt comfortable with the material learned from Thermodynamics. However, he is a rather strict grader and gave almost no curve in the class even though there was one exam where our class average was 10% lower than both the other teacher's class averages. I ended up getting a B despite doing very well throughout the semester and I would've imagined I was at least top 15% in the class.

Chandrasekhar Thamire
ENES232

Expecting an A
soheikitsune
05/19/2013

Thamire made this class much clearer than the other professors from what I understand, and also made sure that we knew the material before moving on. I would definitely recommend taking him for any course that you can.

Reviews for ENES232